Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Joe Flacco had a hot-and-cold regular season. In the 9 games he
had a passer rating of 83 or better, the Ravens were 8-1. The
problem was he had 7 games with a passer rating of 76.5 or worse,
and the Ravens were 2-5 in those games (the two wins coming against
the Chiefs and the Leftwich-lead Steelers).

In the playoffs, Flacco got on an amazing hot streak, passing for
1140 yards, 11 touchdowns, and a 117.1 passer rating. There defense
wasn't really that amazing (including a couple games they gave up 31
or more points), but with Flacco playing lights out, they just
needed to be "OK", and they were.

For the 49ers, defense has been an issue for a while now. In
their first 13 games, the allowed an average of 14.2 points per
game. Since then (and including the playoffs), they've allowed an
average of 29.7 points per game—more than double the earlier
average.

Colin Kaepernick I think did OK, including taking a team that was
down by 3 scores in the 3rd quarter and getting them back into the
game. There were some points in the game (including that
interception and the 49ers final possession) where his inexperience
showed. But this was a known factor going into the playoffs. I
think if the 49ers defense had played as well as they had for their
first 13 games, the Super Bowl never would've come down to one last
drive to get a go-ahead touchdown.

Totals

ThisWeek

ThisSeason

%

APR

0

-

1

6

-

5

54.5%

SRS

0

-

1

7

-

4

63.6%

Line

0

-

1

8

-

3

72.7%

Epilogue

That's it for the 2012 season. I'm kind of burned out on blogging
about football right now, so I think I'm going to take a pass on the
rest of the season wrap-up posts, and let fspi go dark for the off
season.

I may do some off-season stuff in a few months if my interest
rebounds, but if not, I'll be back in July with the
Pythagorean
Projection post for the upcoming season. Until then, thanks for
reading, and I'll see you next fall.

The Ravens continue the recent theme that it doesn't matter if
you have a bad regular season, if you can get hot in the
playoffs.

Hard to argue against Joe Flacco as MVP, especially if you
consider the Ravens' playoff run as a whole. The Ravens scored at
least 24 points in every one of their playoff games. And won, in
spite of giving up 35 to the Broncos, and 31 to the 49ers.

Thanks to the 49ers' 17-point 3rd quarter, the streak of Super
Bowls within 1 score in the 4th quarter continues.
(Bucs/Raiders
was the last Super Bowl that was not.)